What the teachers union has done with its anti-testing campaign is wrong ["Crowd rallies vs. tests," News, March 10]. But politicians who allowed public education's self-interest to get so out of control, look what you have wrought.

Parents and their school-age children should not be drawn into this. It's not about learning. It's about power, influence and money.

Andrea Vecchio, East Islip

Editor's note: The writer is an activist with the taxpayer groups East Islip TaxPAC and Long Islanders for Educational Reform.

Although I still don't understand why Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo and the editorial board at Newsday are so irate at learning that Long Island's public school teachers are effective, the dearth of "developing" teachers is easy to understand ["Teacher-evals war takes shape," Editorial, March 5.]

Declining enrollment, coupled with the one-two punch of a restrictive tax cap and the last in-first out policy of letting go newly hired and therefore potentially "developing" young teachers, have effectively and unnaturally created an aging and "highly effective" professional teacher corps in most Long Island school districts.

What's truly surprising and "doesn't seem possible" is that politicians and newspeople still don't get it!